A Far Greater Hero Than I
by HPIsHowIRoll
Summary: You come to a metaphorical fork in the road where you must choose for yourself for the first time what is right, and you know it is a decision that will forever change your life. You will not be able to change it, you must live with its consequences.


Draco Malfoy. Prince of Slytherin. Death Eater in training. Arrogant Pureblood. How he changed once he grew into a man! Age has a way of provoking clarity. You look at the ideals you were raised with and decide whether they are the ones you will keep into adulthood. You come to a metaphorical fork in the road where you must choose for yourself for the first time what is right, and you know it is a decision that will forever change your life. You will not be able to change it, you must live with its consequences.

One would think that such an important decision would be made with extensive thought, not in a rash manner in a matter of seconds. The day at the tower when Dumbledore died, Draco had not killed him. But he had run with Snape and the Death Eaters, and he had done countless other terrible things. As he ran through the Forbidden Forest, he started to fall behind. When he remained unnoticed by his companions, he stopped entirely, and in a split second he became a man. He made his choice. He turned back.

He had no way of knowing what they would do to him. He knew that he would probably be killed, he just hoped that it would be quick and painless. As he walked back to Hogwarts, he contemplated his decision and whether or not it had been a smart one. After all, he didn't think very long about it. The only thing that he knew for sure was that he couldn't kill anyone if he couldn't kill the headmaster he hated. He was drawn out of his thoughts when he stumbled over a sobbing figure next to the lake.

Outside the castle on this particular night should have been deserted. Draco wondered who it could have possibly been that he nearly fell over. Hermione looked up at him with a tearstained face filled with grief that contorted quickly into rage. She got up and began pounding her fists to his chest, as a child would do. It seemed she had completely forgotten her magic in her grief, for which Draco was thankful. Even as a pureblood who thought himself better than everyone else, he was smart enough to know that she was a damn powerful witch. Soon her pounds were softened with her heart-wrenching sobs and she fell onto his shoulder crying.

It seemed a clichéd position for them to end up in, Draco thought as he pondered his current situation. He did not hold her and soothe her as he might have, to get on her good side. He backed away and looked her in the eyes. "I didn't kill him. I know you think I did. I didn't. I can't prove it and I know you're going to kill me. But I can't be a Death Eater."

Hermione looked up at him in shock. When she saw him, she had expected it to go one of two ways. Either he was back to kill her or he was back to plead for his life. He was apparently neither. She had thought that he would break down and apologize for all the bad things he had ever done, and she had prepared herself for that. She had steeled herself against his weak "I'm sorry" that she thought she would hear. If he had only said he was sorry and begged that she forgive him, she could have killed him, locked him up, tuned out his story. As it was, she was frozen in shock. He did not ask for her to show him mercy, just stated the facts. She was thrown.

She decided to take him up to the Headmaster's office, which had opened itself to Professor McGonagall. When the professor saw Draco her eyes flashed dangerously, but Hermione spoke quickly, "Draco says that he did not kill Professor Dumbledore and that he does not wish to be a Death Eater. I believe him." Those three words sounded foreign to Draco's disbelieving ears. Professor McGonagall apparently held Hermione in high regard, because she decided to hear him out. Unfortunately, she decided that there were two other opinions that mattered as well.

Harry and Ron were woken and brought to the Headmaster's Office, and their eyes widened as they saw who was there. They had been told by Professor Flitwick, who had brought them, but apparently they had not quite believed him. They sat and listened to his story, about how he had been told that he was to take the dark mark and kill Dumbledore. How he hated Dumbledore, how he had considered the offer Dumbledore had given, how he couldn't kill people. He never said that his mind was changed, that suddenly he loved muggles. He just said that there were two sides, light and dark, and he knew that he could not be dark anymore.

That was the day of Draco Malfoy's salvation. There was no heated argument from Harry and Ron, no one tried to kill Draco. They took what he said at face value and knew that he wasn't going to be running back to Voldemort. Draco knew that when he made his choice, he was choosing a life with the Order. There was no in between for someone like him who was running from the most powerful wizard in the world. He either had to be good or get kicked out on his ass.

All in that one decision to turn back, Draco's life had changed. He was forced to live within the confines of Headquarters, seeing almost no one but Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They came and went frequently along with the other members, and he was left to his own devices. He read a lot, and he concentrated for a few months on un-sticking that damn portrait. He finally succeeded after much research in a library that he had found. He didn't think anyone else really knew it was there. Either that or none of them had the time to peruse its contents.

That day, Draco was treated like a hero. That was the only day. He did nothing particularly useful for the Order, because he was stuck hiding out. Hermione took pity on him and brought him things to amuse himself. Even after his turn of loyalties, he was never completely trusted. He wasn't allowed to sit in the meetings and he never knew exactly what was going on. Hermione felt that they should have trusted him more, but she couldn't do much about it.

Eventually they started talking, the mudblood and the aristocrat. It's not like he had anyone else to talk to, and at that point, neither did she. Harry and Ron were off looking for the last horcrux, that much Draco had been told. Soon, the war would be over and he would be a free man. But soon turned into weeks and months, as the last horcrux proved difficult to locate. Hermione and Draco grew closer. They talked more and more every day, and a friendship developed. Slowly, ever so slowly, more started to happen.

One day, in the sheer confusion of what their relationship was, Draco leaned over from his spot next to her on the couch and kissed her briefly on the lips. She looked shocked, but she let it go without a word. He figured that meant it was ok, and he kissed her again. This time she looked at him questioningly, trying to figure out what their relationship was. He didn't think he had fallen in love with her, but maybe in like. Perhaps it was just because she was the only girl he had seen in a very long time. He didn't know, and he didn't question the subject further. He only knew that he liked this girl who he had thought was beneath him.

He liked the way they talked. She was the only one who really talked to him. The others kind of treated him like he wasn't there. They begrudgingly let him stay at Headquarters, knowing that he wasn't bad, but never quite knowing if he was good. There just wasn't a grey area for him to be in because of the situation. For a while, Draco had thought that he was in that nonexistent grey area. Then, he had realized that these people had changed him. Actually, he was pretty sure it was Hermione.

So they talked more, and they kissed more. Eventually, it became more than kissing, it became a relationship. Hermione had talked to Ron and Harry. They thought she was crazy. She told them she wasn't, and that was the end of it. They held hands and did other things that couples do when they first start to date. They even had a candle lit dinner on the floor of the drawing room.

One day, it became more than like. Draco had never felt this emotion before, and he was slightly confused and taken aback by its intensity. He figured he should probably tell Hermione. He did just that. What surprised him more than the way it sounded coming from his lips was the way it sounded coming from hers. He had never expected her to say it back. In his time at Grimmuald Place he had come to a few conclusions. One of them was that he was not fit to kiss her shoes, and that she was so much higher than him that he did not deserve her love. But she did love him and it made him feel like he could fly, cheesy as it was.

Ron and Harry burst through the doors about 6 months after their confession of love. They had been together nearly every moment since then and were holding hands when they heard the news- Voldemort was mortal. They were planning an attack. Draco's voice was quiet, they barely heard him ask, "Can I come?" Breath caught in Hermione's throat. She didn't want to chance losing him. Harry and Ron still weren't entirely sure they could trust him. He could see that. "I would never let anything happen to Hermione. I'd do anything for her."

And so Draco was allowed to go. The battle was far easier than they had ever imagined. The Death Eaters were not expecting them, and Voldemort was weak. So very weak. It seemed that having parts of your soul destroyed made your body start to give out. Voldemort had underestimated the power of his dark magic. A dark spell that is powerful when created will be just as powerful when destroyed. Perhaps he had just not thought that far ahead, never thought that his horcruxes would be found. Either way, there it was. Some great dark lord he was, huddled in a corner, pleading for his life.

The Death Eaters only got a few of the Order's large number before they were quelled. The only real problem the Order encountered was Lucius. Even after Voldemort was dead (it had been a horribly easy task, and Harry thought he deserved "The-Boy-Who-Defeated-Voldemort-A-Second-Time" even less than he had deserved his first title) Lucius refused to give up. He was shooting spells everywhere, and his eyes finally locked on to the mudblood Granger. How he hated her, though he couldn't say why. He knew his time was running short, but he decided that he would take her out with him.

He ran towards her so fast that almost no one had time to react, Hermione included. She stood, dumbfounded, as Lucius raised his wand and started the incantation. "Avada Kedav…" Draco leaped toward Hermione and pushed her out of harm's way. He smiled at her, said "I love you" and then said no more. His eyes were vacant and she knew the spell had hit him. Harry ran at Lucius from behind. Lucius was looking bewildered as he stared at the body of his own son. Forgetting all magic, Hermione lunged at Lucius, who was now being forcibly restrained by Harry's binding spell, and punched him hard in the nose.

She screamed until her throat was raw, tears streaming down her face. She knelt beside the body of the man she had grown to love, the man who had only just proposed to her, minutes before the battle began. She twisted the ring on her finger. She had accepted. She laid next to him, running her fingers through his blonde hair, and wept for what was never going to be. Someone pulled her off of him, she was vaguely aware of red hair and being put into a bed.

OooOooooooOooooOoooOooooooOooooOooooOoooooooooOooooO

"That is the story of the man we lay to rest today. The story of Draco Malfoy, the story of the man who made the right decision. The story of his change of heart, of his love, and of his death. I am not sure of many things in this life, but I am sure that his fork in the road led him to where he wanted to be, and that he thought it was all worth it, even in the end. He is a far greater hero than I."

With those words, Harry threw a rose into the open grave.


End file.
